When training takes years, literal years, don’t forget the small victories

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It’s easy to forget how much progress is made with incremental, teeny-tiny baby steps.

When you’re in the thick of it, especially when you’re dealing with a problem behavior instead of, like, a fun trick, you can’t even fathom that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, let alone see it.

Once you get there, having taken those itty-bitty steps for God-knows-how-long, it’s easy to forget every teensy step that got you there. Or maybe not forget. Maybe gloss over. I call it self preservation because if you could conceptualize just how much effort some behaviors take… well, it might discourage you from trying.

You might have something in mind that was like that for you and your pup. Your own Everest of Dog Training. For Lucas, it was his dog aggression. Years and years and years of daily work, tears, classes, setbacks, more daily work, more classes, more setbacks… that ultimately made him Most Popular Jock at doggy daycare (title invented by me).

For Cooper, well, he has a series of Everests. Some are foothills, I suppose, because just about everything with him requires some sort of struggle. (Everything but cuddling and running, anyway.)

Our big victory, though, the thing I want to focus on for this blog hop is one of those that took so long and so many incremental steps that one day very recently (Friday) we realized… oh, my goodness… we’re on the other side of the tunnel/over the mountain and through the woods!

That thing?

The vacuum.

About 4 years ago, Cooper decided out of the blue that he hated the vacuum. Not only did he hate it. Oh, no. He needed to kill it. It came out of the blue because we spent a lot of his puppyhood desensitizing him to things like the vacuum that, post-adolescence, he just wouldn’t tolerate. (See: My theory why.)

Anyway, after struggling with his behavior… both vacuums are covered in bite marks… we decided to tackle the unsafe, unpleasant behavior. At the time I contemplated making a “before” video, but I ultimately decided against it because, once I was committed to addressing it, I didn’t want a single other incident!

We did all the usual vacuum-fear-counterconditioning things: Left it out and periodically put treats on and around it, touched the handle without turning it on while giving treats, moving it without turning it on while giving treats, and so on. The entire time, every time we had to actually run the vacuum, we put him outside or in another room to prevent repeats. Then we moved to running it with him nearby but behind a gate while giving him treats and ultimately escalated to tossing treats away from the running vacuum until finally, finally he was able to take treats from you while you were vacuuming.

Years. Also, our floors were never quite clean because all that? Yeah, it was a giant pain in the ass.

Which brings us to Friday. John got the vacuum out, and as soon as he hit the power button…. Cooper ran straight over to him! To where John was vacuuming! And right up to the vacuum!

Of course, four years later, his thought process is now, “Vacuum turns on, and even though I hate it, I get piles and piles of treattttttssssss!!!!” Which was the goal.

Yet, somehow we never really saw or realized: We achieved our goal!

No, he doesn’t trust the vacuum, and no, he’s not 100%. I’ve realized he still goes after the hose if I let his concentration waver. But. He did it. Or, at least, he’s doing it.

And it was so incremental, we didn’t even realize it!

“NBD! Gimme treats, man!” (Ed note: Please ignore the crappy photo. I will learn how to take pics some day… prob as soon as I get a camera… ha!)

“OK, maybe a little bit of a BD here with the hose. See these ears? These are BD ears. More treats, please.”

What are you working on in tiny baby steps? What progress have you made that you maybe take for granted? Celebrate those wins, y’all!

Comments

Habi is our eleven year old neophobic, reactive, low-impulse-control border collie, adopted when she was three. After behavioral vet consultation, reactive dog classes twice, several years of Prozac and countless hours of behavioral modification games, we’ve been having pretty good walks for the last three years – as long as the treat bag is full. I was fully prepared to use treats on every walk forever ; considering how far she’d come, this was not an issue at all.

Today she badly wanted to go for a walk (wonderful in itself!), and rain was threatening, so I grabbed her leash and off we set – only to realize four houses away that we had left without treat bag (or poop bag. Fortunately she squatted on a vacant lot near home so I could pick up later). But the miracle was that we walked for a mile, passing two other dogs on walks and a few behind fences, happily and lazy-leashly! I can still scarcely believe it. As you say, “It’s easy to forget how much progress is made with incremental, teeny-tiny baby steps.” till a miracle (based on those itsy-bitsy steps) happens.

As with you and Cooper, I don’t expect this to happen every time, but it’s amazing that it happened once!

Congratulations! This is SO much like my experience working with Hershey on her abject terror of brooms or similar items. It was a two year process to relieve her of a fear instilled before I got her. Click my name if you’d like to read about it. By the way, the “… both vacuums are covered in bite marks…” aside had me in stitches!

SO glad you shared that link because it’s such a perfect example of taking the time our pups need. I think with training, sometimes we (and by “we” I totally mean me… I’m very guilty of this…) set goals and expectations to work at OUR pace, when really we need to be focusing on whatever their pace is. Thanks for sharing!!

Vacuum with bite marks. I can’t even tell you how much that is my life. Ergo, why we moved to a place with hardwood floors. Now the only thing I have to vacuum is the stairs which I can do with a Dustbuster. (Which she also hates, but will leave alone when told to do so.)

I think the thing we’ve been working on for years that I’ve seen a huge improvement with lately is walking by other dogs. Like, she’s totally chill. This is the dog that would react at HALF A MILE. Yesterday, we walked by two giant mastiffs three times at less than 20 paces and she was totally chill. She wasn’t even paying attention to them. She’d look over there and then look back at the rest of the world, never pulling or whining or stressing. (Of course, I tried baby talking her at first “Look at those big doggies! Oh my goodness!” to keep her attention, but she was very much like, “You sound like an idiot mom. For real. I am a grown up dog now.”) The city dog training must be working!

That is AMAZING!!! Seriously, that’s incredible. I’m so proud of you and Daisy, and it’s such an inspiration to me. I really appreciate you sharing that… you totally renewed my optimism that we can continue to make progress with Coop and dogs!!

That’s a really good point… I sort of take it for granted that Newt will hide from the vacuum and haven’t given her as much time and attention simply because Cooper was the more acute issue. You’ve inspired me to research this in cats… thank you!!

Great job!! When I think back on Ducky’s first month with us and how she constantly tormented poor Shadow over every little thing, I realize how far she has come. Of course, losing her best furry friend (Callie) last summer – along with just getting older – matured her a lot. She still has her bratty moments where Shadow’s concerned, but she is treating Shadow more like a friend than an annoyance to be tolerated.

Congratulations! It’s amazing how these little moments creep up on us and before you realise it, the misbehaviour isn’t happening anymore. It is always an arduous process and often time-consuming but it’s so rewarding!

My spaniel is very intelligent and requires daily training. He is not a working spaniel but he has the spaniel about him where he feels the need to work – so I do. I take him out, make him work his nose, use his brain and exercise. After he has “worked” he looks and acts so much calmer and happier.

He works through training and my boy literally lives for his training. Training is highly important!!

Oh man, I can’t even imagine dealing with literally years of training, you have so much patience. I love this story though. Turning scary vacuum time into something that the dogs look forward to is such a victory!